Pre-fermentation Clarification

[Patrick McCauley]

Hi All. I had a question about clarifying juice prior to fermentation. I wild ferment all of my ciders with a tiny sulfite dose, and many take a week to a month for the fermentation to really kick off. One thing I have noticed is that my ciders that are clear prior to fermentation tend to ferment slower and it is easier to control the fermentation speed. GoldRush always tends to ferment clearly and slowly for me, partially because it's such a late-season apple and the cellar is so cold by that point. The juice also tends to be very clear, unlike many of the other apples I press. I suppose this is why keeving is popular. I was just curious though if anybody else has luck clarifying their juice prior to fermentation using any other procedures besides keeving? I've seen historical sources that recommend adding gelatin and I've also read about other compounds for fining. Pectin enzymes are recommended by many, but does this help clear the cider on the front end? If anyone has done this, does it work for slowing the fermentation? I've started keeving some of my ciders this year with mixed results, and in some of the ciders it's made a hazy mess of the cider, even after the cider has sat for weeks. I'm in SE Michigan with lots of higher acid apples that likely don't lend themselves to keeving very well.

Using a recipe from 1863, which I had shared with this group a while back, I have started racking the freshly pressed cider off of the sediment after 4 or 5 days in the fermenter, and then racking again after the fermentation has started. This seems to really help create a less vigorous and controlled fermentation, that is clearer. Just curious if anybody had any tips, such as using different fining formulas to help clarify the cider prior to fermentation, or is keeving the only good way to do this? Thanks for the help.

Pat McCauley 

[Claude Jolicoeur]

Yes, a pre-fermentation clarification helps in getting a slower ferment. This is because in a clarified must, a smaller percentage of the yeast will be in suspension in the liquid, and a larger amount will be at the bottom - hence on a racking, we eliminate more yeast cells (those that are on the bottom of the tank) and keep less (those that are in suspension).

This pre-fermentation clarification is standard procedure for many cideries. It is also called debourbage.  Most cideries have their house method they have developed after trials. Usually, it consists in a pectinase, sometimes a fining, and a racking of the cleared juice after one or 2 days. Different apple varieties call for different procedures as, as you have noticed, the juice of some varieties is already clear at the exit of the press, while others are extremely hazy (and difficult to clarify).

[Patrick McCauley]

Thanks so much, Claude! Do you have a preferred method of fining the cider pre-fermentation? I've never done it before or after fermentation, as I always just wait for the cider to clear naturally.

Pat

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[Claude Jolicoeur]

Le mercredi 2 novembre 2022 à 09:59:04 UTC-4, patrickmc...@gmail.com a écrit :

Thanks so much, Claude! Do you have a preferred method of fining the cider pre-fermentation?

Yes: keeving.

[luis.ga...@gmail.com]

If you don't want to keeve, pectic enzyme is another recommended method.

Louis

Le mercredi 2 novembre 2022 à 09:59:04 UTC-4, patrickmc...@gmail.com a écrit :

[LL]

Does any of these cideries use filtration to clarify the juice, before fermentation?

[Kirk Evans]

Hi LL,

Most large cideries do NOT filter pre-fermentation in my experience (I make cider at one). Part of that reason as I understand it is that much of your naturally occurring Nitrogen (good stuff for fermentation) is contained in the sediment. They will use Pectic enzymes to help the juice to clarify better after primary fermentation though.

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[LL]

Ok, interesting. But that information seems to contradict what Claude wrote above about pre-fermentation clarification:

"This pre-fermentation clarification is standard procedure for many cideries. It is also called debourbage.  Most cideries have their house method they have developed after trials. Usually, it consists in a pectinase, sometimes a fining, and a racking of the cleared juice after one or 2 days."

Best

/Love

[Claude Jolicoeur]

It is not necessarily in contradiction...

The fact that many cideries will do a pre-fermentation clarification doesn't mean "all" or "most".... There are thousands of cideries out there, and obviously they don't all do the same thing.

Also, I never talked about "filtering".

[LL]

Ok, fair enough, Claude, it's not a formal contradiction. Although you do actually write that "Most cideries have their house method they have developed after trials". And I did not claim that you mentioned filtration; I was referring to what you said about pre-fermentation clarification. 

Anyhow, I am trying to learn something about cider production here, rather than debating semantics. And my question remains: Do the pre-fermentation clarification methods you refer to include filtration?

Best

/Love

[Claude Jolicoeur]

Le samedi 5 novembre 2022 à 00:14:00 UTC-4, LL a écrit :

And my question remains: Do the pre-fermentation clarification methods you refer to include filtration?

Those producers I discussed with did not do a filtration. Others possibly may...

Keep in mind this is not something I do, as I prefer keeving as a pre-fermentation clarification method.

[Patrick McCauley]

Thank you all for the tips and advice, all! I am going to try pectinase on my last couple of batches that I will be pressing this year. To answer Love's question, there is a big difference between using pectinase and fining, and filtering. Claude would know better, but I suspect that they don't filter at the beginning because it would just clog the filters, in addition to robbing the cider of nutrients. Fining and racking is a very different process. In my home cider making operation, I screen my juice just to keep the large bits out of the fermenter, and even then, if I use too fine of a screen, it will get clogged up quite easily and becomes quite a frustrating process. I can only imagine what would happen if you ran the raw sweet cider through a filter.

Pat

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[LL]

Thanks! I understand :-)

Best 

/Love

[Kirk Evans]

Every cidery does things differently. The process that Claude described is what I've used (and seen used) for backsweetening juice. 

Most large cideries that make modern cider (should have clarified that in my original answer) have cross flow filters, so the process of fining and racking pre-fermentation is unnecessary as cross flow removes basically all haze, pectns, etc.

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[Kirk Evans]

Also, I see that this statement could've been confusing in my original reply. "They will use Pectic enzymes to help the juice to clarify better after primary fermentation though."

What I should've said was they will use Pectic enzymes pre-fermentation to help the juice clarify better by the end of primary fermentation.

On Fri, Nov 4, 2022, 4:49 PM LL <love....@gmail.com> wrote:

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[LL]

I am sure it is difficult to filter away sediments in the beginning. Filtration does not exclude the use of pectinase, though; both can be used. A local producer of fresh apple juice does that, for their clear juice; they use pectinase followed by cross flow filtration. I suppose it is a way of optimizing yield. Personally, I have thought that filter bags could be used to remove sediments before fermentation (with a suitable filter housing, not gravitational filtration). But it's probably not worth the effort.

As for filtration and nutrients, nitrogen sources for the yeast are present in the juice as amino acids and ammonium salts. These molecules are way to small to be captured even by fine filters with a mesh size below 1 micron. So it would be surprising to me if filtration had an impact on that.

Best

/Love

[Patrick McCauley]

Forgive my ignorance, but will PME help to clarify cider on its own, like pectinase, or does it not work unless you follow it calcium chloride? As I mentioned in initial email, when I added the calcium chloride a few days after adding the PME, it created a messy haze in many of my ciders that wouldn't settle out or form the chapeau brun, even after waiting for a couple weeks. It was likely that the ideal conditions for keeving weren't present in the apples that I was using.

Pat McCauley 

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[Andrew Lea]

No I’m afraid PME on its own won’t clarify apple juice. It only de-esterifies the pectin chains to polygalacturonic acid, it does not break them up. To do that you need another enzyme PG (polygalacturonase). Commercial “pectinases” are generally a mixture of PME and PG.

However, if there is sufficient pectin present in the first place, then calcium will react with de-esterified pectin (polygalacturonic acid) to form an insoluble salt (gel) which can be made to rise as the “chapeau brun” if there is also gas from an incipient yeast fermentation. The most likely reason that this did not happen for you is that there was insufficient pectin present in the first place to form a good gel with the added calcium.

This presentation may help? http://www.cider.org.uk/keeving.pdf

Andrew

Wittenham Hill Cider Page

www.cider.org.uk

On 7 Nov 2022, at 13:37, Patrick McCauley <patrickmc...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[luis.ga...@gmail.com]

This pre-fermentation clarification is standard procedure for many cideries. It is also called debourbage.  Most cideries have their house method they have developed after trials. Usually, it consists in a pectinase, sometimes a fining, and a racking of the cleared juice after one or 2 days. 

Claude, I am wondering if there is a benefit from racking the cider from the "lees" a day or two after pectinase addition. Someone mentionned a reduction of yeast nutrient. Does these "lees" contains a significantly higher nutrient content than the must itself? And is there other benefits from racking them rapidly?

I've always waited until the first racking (usually two to four weeks after the beggining of fermentation) to remove them, but a reduction in nitrogen would worth a modification of my cidrification method.

Louis

[Claude Jolicoeur]

Louis,

To be frank, I don't have experimented enough with débourbage to answer your question...

I would suspect however that racking before the start of fermentation would reduce somewhat the nutrients. I have only done it a couple of times and it is hard to say if there is a real effect.